Happy birthday, Kobold Adventure (Patreon)

Hello, everyone. Kobold Adventure turned three years old this month. I delayed this post to the very end of October, hoping I would have something spectacular to announce, but I'm afraid the artist-end of things still needs a little bit of work before we have something to show. As such, a birthday-post without flashy new things. Let's start with a yearly summary.

This year, Kobold Adventure has had some ups and downs. A bunch of new content was added, ranging from morning four to a lot of night three stuff to noon four, afternoon four, the breeding barn breakin, Footsie's Boyfriend route, more Fenrir and a lot of stuff in between. I'm not claiming that these things are complete. A bunch of them can still do with a considerable amount of work. But a solid foundation has been laid. And building on that foundation, will be the name of the game for year four.

The total wordcount has reached roughly nine hundred thousand words. On top of raw content for the game, I've been keeping myself busy with several side projects and code improvements. aCheat is the most recent, but the gallery rework and the updated ingame store framework deserve mention as well, on top of the countless of smaller improvements made over the year.

In terms of side projects, the elephant in the room is Heavy Scales, Lonesome Roads. It got made, it got launched, and I've been waiting more than half a year for the art needed to finish the next bloody update ever since. I'm as hopeful as ever that maybe I'll finally get the drawings I need to release the next set of pages. It's not dead yet, that much I can assure you. We'll see how it turns out.

I've also been doing some recreative writing on the side. Bea's Descent, first and foremost; but I've also got some additional stories written up that need publishing. Once again, I am stuck waiting for artwork to be made for the thumbnails. The next couple of chapters for Bea's Descent have taken a bit of a sideline these past couple of months, but they'll be back on the schedule once I feel up to the task of writing them.

A third project that I have been working on, was supposed to be announced in this very post. I really don't want to say "I'm still waiting on the artwork" for like the fourth or fifth time this post, but yeah. It's still being conceptualized. However, unlike HSLR, once the early phases of art direction and main character design are completed, I will be imposing strict deadlines on any artists that choose to contribute to this project, to avoid it from falling into the "can't progress, need art" pitfall.

Artist delays feel like a theme that was a bit too heavily featured as of late. Despite this, Kobold Adventure has reached a whole 'nother level of illustration during its third year of life. We've gone from like eighty to two hundred images in the gallery, more than doubling the amount of visual flair available. A lot of these were contributed by TruFezan, who is quickly establishing himself as one of the most talented up-and-coming artists world-wide, if you ask me.

With a lot of the critical parts now covered, I'm going to try to slowly shift art assets towards this new project I've been talking about; if only until it has enough visual content to stand on its own two feet. As such, I don't expect the amount of illustration in Kobold Adventure to double again in 2021.

Still, that doesn't mean there won't be any new art added at all. In fact, I'm still waiting on a batch of imagery that's more than a month overdue. Resources willing, I'll ensure that some of the newer things added to the game will be getting illustrated in the near future.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the small bit of a breakdown I had last month. Still, I feel like I've talked about this part of the year more than plenty, and mulling on the past serves nobody. Mistakes were made, and I think I've learned at least a little from them. I'll try my hardest not to let it happen again.

And yeah, that's in a nutshell what has happened this year. Going forwards, I hope I can fill in some of the gaps left by the rapid story progression that you guys voted for, and after that I want to get to work on night four, which is where the plot of Kobold Adventure will really start to shine (I hope).

As always, please do not fear that my side ventures will have any impact on the development of Kobold Adventure. The only way it will be hampered, is if I have another burnout (or whatever you want to call it); and I'm going to try my best to prevent that from happening. I can assure you that these other activities require a different kind of effort, that has very little overlap with my writing for the game. I'll speak more on this topic during the reveal of the hidden project.

Now, onto the immediate future. Planning for Red's scene has come to a close. I've got some pretty interesting concepts in store for her, including a kind of content that Kobold Adventure is thus far slightly lacking in. You'll see. Writing will start either tomorrow, or the day after that, depending on whether or not I can shake off this headache in due time. Update somewhere next week, probably.

Tomorrow, I'll greet all the new patrons that have joined since my last post. Shirts and statuettes for October are in a bit of a delay due to covid stuff, but they'll arrive when they do. Apologies for the delay. I'll order November's batch in a few days. And that's pretty much all I have to say for now. Thank you for your interest in Kobold Adventure, and I'll see you next year, around the same time, for another yearly roundup. Stay tuned for more kobolds, and more adventure.

And also a 2D combat-platformer game called Kobold Knight, there I spoiled it please don't tell Sneaky.